Welcome to the Snow and Ice Games where competition is not the only thing that is heating up! The fifth book in bestselling Tamsen Parker’s romance series concludes with a pairs figure skating couple sharing the ice… and close quarters. At the last Snow and Ice Games, Jubilee Buford and her husband and partner Stephen Wallace were on top of the pairs figure skating world. The newlyweds won gold … newlyweds won gold and their future looked bright. But just months after she thought her world couldn’t get any more perfect, Jubilee lost everything. After a scrapped attempt at a solo career, her coach found her a new partner and new possibilities in Beckett Hughes.
Beckett’s had a hard time finding a partner to compete with. Someone who’s as aggressive as he is, someone who’s given up as much of their life as he has for success. He finally found a fit with Jubilee two years ago. She’s not much fun to skate with, but Beckett doesn’t need fun; he needs precision and effort and there Jubilee delivers.
When a housing mix-up in the Snow and Ice village forces them to room with each other, they’re suddenly compelled to recognize each other’s human side. And as Jubilee and Beckett start to see each other as people instead of robots on skates, they discover that they’ve got chemistry between the sheets as well as on the ice. But the flames between them in the bedroom might melt any chance they have at medaling, and that outcome is not acceptable to either one, or the country that’s counting on them to bring home the gold and the glory.
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On The Brink of Passion is book five in the Snow and Ice Games series. It can be read as a standalone as each book features a different couple and different sports.
I have enjoyed all the previous books in this series. This was my least liked story of the lot. I had a hard time forming any connection to the characters or their story. Mainly because of Jubilee.
Jubilee gives a new meaning to the word ice queen! She has been paired with Beckett in pairs skating solely to bring home a medal. She was such a turn off for me. I realize she had been through the wringer, but the way she treats Beckett, I did not care for.
Beckett was so warm and caring-opposite of Jubilee. He took WAY too much crap from her! We find out what happened to her much later in the book, and by then, my opinion of her couldn’t be changed. I felt so bad for Beckett. He came off like a doormat and I wanted him to break free to be with someone worthy of him. I really did not like her.
I think if we were let in on the traumatic event earlier in the story, my thoughts on them as characters and then a couple may have been different.
I voluntarily reviewed a gifted copy from NetGalley. The rating and review are my personal opinion.
Reviews by the Wicked Reads Review Team
Ruthie –
This is the fifth in the series, and I think they all standalone very well, but obviously all link together due to the location of the events.
Reading this during the Winter Olympics has made it so much more fun and relevant. Especially as there is quite a lot of complex detail about the skating jumps, lifts, etc. Completely loved that I could picture their routines based on having just seen it on TV. If you read this at any other time, I would recommend a quick YouTube of a free dance pairs routine just to get you into the triple salko mood.
It is inevitable that watching two people dance together on the ice, there is a desire to believe that the chemistry follows on in their private lives. Well Ms. Parker has come up with the most amazing story here. The beginning was really quite shocking. I couldn’t decide if I felt more sorry for Beckett or Jubilee, but painful it certainly was. As time goes on it feels a little more comfortable, but as we get both viewpoints, we know that there is a massive elephant in the room, which inevitably squashes everything.
I loved how the twists and turns were unravelled and the story gives us what we want, but only after some very dicey moments. It was definitely a story with plenty of complications, but absolutely fascinating and very entertaining for sure. Thank you, Ms. Parker.
Reviewers on the Wicked Reads Review Team were provided a free copy of On the Brink of Passion (Snow & Ice Games #5) by Tamsen Parker to read and review.
As a fan of ice skating I was very excited to read this book. I must say I ended up disappointed and disturbed. I could not feel a loving connection between these two characters and so for me there was really no romance. The intimate scenes are off-putting and very unpleasant. I am open minded. I read a wide range of genres and find great reads in them all but these scenes portrayed something that just didn’t feel right. The whole situation was murky and ambivalent . Maybe this was what the author was going for and if so she succeeded, but to me it was a huge turnoff. I did enjoy the inside look into ice skating and thought the storyline was interesting.